4 ms·

> The takeover by the proscriptive far-left Americans have a very weird conception of what "far-left" means. Liberal feel good minority appeasement by billion

by wz1000 9y ago

> The takeover by the proscriptive far-left Americans have a very weird conception of what "far-left" means. Liberal feel good minority appeasement by billion dollar multinational corporations is as far from "far-left" as you can get.

archagon 9y ago
Just people arguing in bad faith, I think.
- sho 9y ago
  I hope that I demonstrate through my polite and hopefully-constructive replies that I am in fact arguing in good faith. Once we abandon that assumption then all hope is lost.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    http://wondermark.com/1k62/ http://wondermark.com/1k62/
refurb 9y ago
Political views are relative. I could say that there are no hard-right parties in Europe (with mainstream ideals - I'm ignoring the fascist parties).
- adventured 9y ago
  You can't correctly say there are no hard-right parties in Europe. They're in nearly every European nation and often have large political positions. Ignoring that is like pretending the alt-right Breitbart crowd doesn't exist in the US. Much of Eastern Europe in particular is overflowing with a hard-right quasi-fascist ideology currently.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Fn in France and AfD in Germany are firmly right, and it seems perverse to ignore fascist parties like Jobbik and others considering their relative electoral success, even if you believe that to be a flash in the pan. I spend a good deal of time worrying about this international drift.
  - refurb 9y ago
    How right are the non-fascist parties relative to the right in the US? That was my point. For example, is there any right wing party advocating eliminating universal healthcare?
  - lkerrekfjk 9y ago
    Fn in France are pro universal healthcare and pro nationalization of several industries. If anything, these are not "right-wing" positions. One can be anti globalist, anti-EU, anti unchecked immigration and still believe in well-fare state. Reducing the Fn to "right-wing" is a gross simplification. If anything the EU is an anti-democratic and ultra capitalistic and globalist institution. But it seems that being left-wing is now reduced to "how much you like refugees and immigrants" these days. You can't be truly left wing and be pro EU, a despotic institution.
sho 9y ago
Interesting, especially since I am not American and I think I have a pretty good idea of what "far-left" means. Care to explain what you think it means? I use it to describe any political ideology focussed on equality of outcome and legitimacy through elimination of self-judged "oppression", which is IMO as good a definition as any as the communist disasters of the 20th century.
- wz1000 9y ago
  Most "far-leftists" tend to view liberal identity politics as a distraction, or a way for the ruling classes to promote infighting and discord, occasionally handing out scraps to keep the proles occupied. Leftists aren't really bothered about whether the CEO or President is black or white or male or female or transgender, but by the fact that any single person is allowed the wield the power that a CEO or President can yield. Many of them also reject reformist politics. Black Panther Party member Fred Hampton(As good an example of a "far-left" American figure as you can find) can probably explain it better: > We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism. > We ain't gonna fight no reactionary pigs who run up and down the street being reactionary; we're gonna organize and dedicate ourselves to revolutionary political power and teach ourselves the specific needs of resisting the power structure, arm ourselves, and we're gonna fight reactionary pigs with INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION. That's what it has to be. The people have to have the power: it belongs to the people. > We have to understand very clearly that there's a man in our community called a capitalist. Sometimes he's black and sometimes he's white. But that man has to be driven out of our community, because anybody who comes into the community to make profit off the people by exploiting them can be defined as a capitalist. And we don't care how many programs they have, how long a dashiki they have. Because political power does not flow from the sleeve of a dashiki; political power flows from the barrel of a gun. It flows from the barrel of a gun! http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/fhamptonspeech.html http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/fhamptonspeech.html A good rule of thumb is - Anything done by multi billion dollar corporations is probably not leftist.
HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
> Americans have a very weird conception of what "far-left" means And other Americans have a very weird conception of what far-left is outside of America. There are nations out there that are very, very conservative compared to the US. Republican talking points would be far-left in much of the world outside Western Europe, Canada and Australasia.
psyc 9y ago
It's very difficult to choose a single term to describe the cultural cluster that sho is referring to, that would not result in quibbling over the term, or whether it's a thing. I know which cultural cluster he's talking about. Closely related or alternate terms include social justice warrior, authoritarian left, regressive left, cultural marxist, identity politics, oppression stack, 3rd wave feminist, virtue-signaling left, neo-puritan, and so on. I've omitted a dozen other terms that are more like slurs, but I'm still a bit disappointed that most of these have some degree of negative connotation. I can't think of a totally neutral term that would be recognizable.
- throwitawaypls 9y ago
  Progressive? That’s what they call themselves, mostly.
  - psyc 9y ago
    I’m sure they do, but to me that term is much broader than the subculture I’m trying to describe.
lkerrekfjk 9y ago
> Americans have a very weird conception of what "far-left" means. Liberal feel good minority appeasement by billion dollar multinational corporations is as far from "far-left" as you can get. You're not paying attention that's all. All American politics revolves first and foremost around identity politics. Do you support illegals or not? Are you in favour of transgender kids using this or that bathroom or not? now go educate yourself about the "wonders" of "diversity", "inclusiveness", "white fragility", "toxic masculinity" and all that intersectional bullshit. Intersectionalists have infected every level of management in corporations such as Google,Twitter or Github. So much that these people will actively try to fire you if you don't agree with their extremist ideology. The power grab is real and they are using the companies they work in to further their political agenda and giving bullshit jobs to their friends from social studies. These people are putting their ideology before anything else. The wealth of the silicon valley is just a mean to spread their influence and their doctrine. Their first victim was the open source community, conferences, where they established tribunals under guise of fairness through codes of conducts. These venues are now politically charged environments where using the "wrong pronoun" will get you kicked out of a project.

by wz1000 9y ago

archagon 9y ago

Just people arguing in bad faith, I think.

sho 9y ago
I hope that I demonstrate through my polite and hopefully-constructive replies that I am in fact arguing in good faith. Once we abandon that assumption then all hope is lost.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  http://wondermark.com/1k62/ http://wondermark.com/1k62/

refurb 9y ago

Political views are relative. I could say that there are no hard-right parties in Europe (with mainstream ideals - I'm ignoring the fascist parties).

adventured 9y ago
You can't correctly say there are no hard-right parties in Europe. They're in nearly every European nation and often have large political positions. Ignoring that is like pretending the alt-right Breitbart crowd doesn't exist in the US. Much of Eastern Europe in particular is overflowing with a hard-right quasi-fascist ideology currently.
anigbrowl 9y ago
Fn in France and AfD in Germany are firmly right, and it seems perverse to ignore fascist parties like Jobbik and others considering their relative electoral success, even if you believe that to be a flash in the pan. I spend a good deal of time worrying about this international drift.
- refurb 9y ago
  How right are the non-fascist parties relative to the right in the US? That was my point. For example, is there any right wing party advocating eliminating universal healthcare?
- lkerrekfjk 9y ago
  Fn in France are pro universal healthcare and pro nationalization of several industries. If anything, these are not "right-wing" positions. One can be anti globalist, anti-EU, anti unchecked immigration and still believe in well-fare state. Reducing the Fn to "right-wing" is a gross simplification. If anything the EU is an anti-democratic and ultra capitalistic and globalist institution. But it seems that being left-wing is now reduced to "how much you like refugees and immigrants" these days. You can't be truly left wing and be pro EU, a despotic institution.

sho 9y ago

Interesting, especially since I am not American and I think I have a pretty good idea of what "far-left" means. Care to explain what you think it means? I use it to describe any political ideology focussed on equality of outcome and legitimacy through elimination of self-judged "oppression", which is IMO as good a definition as any as the communist disasters of the 20th century.

wz1000 9y ago
Most "far-leftists" tend to view liberal identity politics as a distraction, or a way for the ruling classes to promote infighting and discord, occasionally handing out scraps to keep the proles occupied. Leftists aren't really bothered about whether the CEO or President is black or white or male or female or transgender, but by the fact that any single person is allowed the wield the power that a CEO or President can yield. Many of them also reject reformist politics. Black Panther Party member Fred Hampton(As good an example of a "far-left" American figure as you can find) can probably explain it better: > We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism. > We ain't gonna fight no reactionary pigs who run up and down the street being reactionary; we're gonna organize and dedicate ourselves to revolutionary political power and teach ourselves the specific needs of resisting the power structure, arm ourselves, and we're gonna fight reactionary pigs with INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION. That's what it has to be. The people have to have the power: it belongs to the people. > We have to understand very clearly that there's a man in our community called a capitalist. Sometimes he's black and sometimes he's white. But that man has to be driven out of our community, because anybody who comes into the community to make profit off the people by exploiting them can be defined as a capitalist. And we don't care how many programs they have, how long a dashiki they have. Because political power does not flow from the sleeve of a dashiki; political power flows from the barrel of a gun. It flows from the barrel of a gun! http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/fhamptonspeech.html http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/fhamptonspeech.html A good rule of thumb is - Anything done by multi billion dollar corporations is probably not leftist.

HumanDrivenDev 9y ago

> Americans have a very weird conception of what "far-left" means And other Americans have a very weird conception of what far-left is outside of America. There are nations out there that are very, very conservative compared to the US. Republican talking points would be far-left in much of the world outside Western Europe, Canada and Australasia.

psyc 9y ago

It's very difficult to choose a single term to describe the cultural cluster that sho is referring to, that would not result in quibbling over the term, or whether it's a thing. I know which cultural cluster he's talking about. Closely related or alternate terms include social justice warrior, authoritarian left, regressive left, cultural marxist, identity politics, oppression stack, 3rd wave feminist, virtue-signaling left, neo-puritan, and so on. I've omitted a dozen other terms that are more like slurs, but I'm still a bit disappointed that most of these have some degree of negative connotation. I can't think of a totally neutral term that would be recognizable.

throwitawaypls 9y ago
Progressive? That’s what they call themselves, mostly.
- psyc 9y ago
  I’m sure they do, but to me that term is much broader than the subculture I’m trying to describe.

lkerrekfjk 9y ago

> Americans have a very weird conception of what "far-left" means. Liberal feel good minority appeasement by billion dollar multinational corporations is as far from "far-left" as you can get. You're not paying attention that's all. All American politics revolves first and foremost around identity politics. Do you support illegals or not? Are you in favour of transgender kids using this or that bathroom or not? now go educate yourself about the "wonders" of "diversity", "inclusiveness", "white fragility", "toxic masculinity" and all that intersectional bullshit. Intersectionalists have infected every level of management in corporations such as Google,Twitter or Github. So much that these people will actively try to fire you if you don't agree with their extremist ideology. The power grab is real and they are using the companies they work in to further their political agenda and giving bullshit jobs to their friends from social studies. These people are putting their ideology before anything else. The wealth of the silicon valley is just a mean to spread their influence and their doctrine. Their first victim was the open source community, conferences, where they established tribunals under guise of fairness through codes of conducts. These venues are now politically charged environments where using the "wrong pronoun" will get you kicked out of a project.